Voting for Romney

It must be hard to be Mitt Romney. One wonders if he knows what he believes. I, for one, am not a person who would ever hold against him the fact that a politician changed his mind. I think that those folks who so are idealistic, so set in their ways that compromise is a non starter are destined to be failures in the political world. Under our system compromise is necessary.

Mitt Romney does appear to be a man caught in the middle. The fact is that even when he says things that in the past a Conservative candidate would never say out loud he cannot apologize. If GW Bush was caught with the 47 percent statement he would have said that was not what he meant and importantly the Conservatives would have understood. They trusted him.

Mitt Romney cannot even backtrack his most egregious statements for fear that the Conservatives will think he again is not being faithful. Yesterday I wrote about Romney's only hope would be to repudiate some of the more Conservative criticism of his candidacy. Any other candidate with a true conservative nature could do that with a wink and a nod and his followers on the far right would have understood the necessity. This candidate with his pro choice, pro gay rights, Romneycare past cannot do so.

It really is remarkable that Romney has come this far in the process with Republican backing. The fact is this. Mitt Romney is a traditional Northeast Republican. He belives in business and that what is good for business is good for the country. He also despite his protestations to the opposite is not a conservative on social issues. Now he might think those wanting abortions, or who cannot afford healthcare, or who are homosexual are beneath him but his record in Massachusetts shows that he really has no big issues with them having these freedoms.

Romney is like Rudolph wearing that uncomfortable mud nose to keep the red nose from showing. It makes him talk funny and it is hard to understand him.

I love Joe Scarborough and value and agree with his opinions much of the time. In this case I disagree with him. Romney, I feel, would have this race in the bag if he had won as the Massachusetts Republican that he was. The fact is that what is hurting Romney, at least with the Independents he needs to sway, are his positions that he is giving lip service to the far right with.

Of course without this dog and pony show Romney would have never got the nomination. Demographically and dogmatically the Republican party has a problem, and were it not for gerrymandering Congressional districts this would be even more noticeable today than it has yet been. The day is coming and coming soon however where the truth will not be avoidable.

Now contrast Mitt Romney with his father. George Romney the former Governor of Michigan. A man who worked his way up to become President of American Motors. A man who, as his wife Lenore said in a campaign interview, was on welfare or assistance when he was young. George Romney when running for reelection as Governor touted his emphasis on public education, environmental protections, and jobs programs to help our young people find their way. In short George Romney was the candidate that Mitt was in Massachusetts and should be now. Of course George had the life experience that Mitt never did, he knew what struggle was.

This is a fatal flaw for Romney. When he speaks forthrightly about having to sell some stock to get through college we laugh but Mitt is being honest. Look being rich is not a problem to getting elected. FDR, JFK, these men were incredibly wealthy and never worked a day in their lives. Still Romney might be the first major party candidate to campaign publicly stressing Scrooge McDuck policies.

In his Sixty Minutes interview Sunday Romney stated that he felt it was fair that he paid 14 percent in taxes in 2011 while an average worker might pay more because a low tax rate on the wealthy encouraged investment and growth. Mitt, who passed Romneycare with an emphasis on the savings that would be earned by preventive care and less emergency room usage, actually said that with the repeal of Obamacare that emergency rooms were always there for those who did not have health insurance.

I do not think Mitt Romney is a bad person. Though if the election lasts much longer I might begin to. I simply feel he might well not know who he is anymore, the task of what he thinks, what he is supposed to think, and what he used to think, the task of keeping those all straight is more than he or perhaps any candidate could navigate.

Look over the videos and statements of George Romney in 1966. And then join me in voting for Romney for President. George Romney that is.

Judge Not Lest

On the front page of the CNN Web Site this weekend was an article about Mitochondrial disease. A family with a young boy was shown in a picture and the article explained how the young boy was not expected to live much beyond on his tenth birthday. Genetic defects leading to mitochondrial diseases we learned are on the rise.

In each of these articles there always appears a small disclaimer that says something like the following, " Most of these occur in small children but there is an increasing amount of adult onset variations as well." This is what happened to me.

The point I want to make here is that each and everyone of us makes judgements on people and situations everyday. Some of us have a gift for making good judgements about people. I used to have a friend who would get mad at me because I would sometimes judge a person we had just met to not be what he claimed to be, not as " all that" as my friend might think he is. Looking back on it the fact that I was right on most of these occasions is no solace to my later in life observation is that if you call heads every time on a coin toss you will be right about half the time.

In short making assumptions can be dangerous and lead to results which are preordained. A quotation we have all heard is not to judge someone until you have walked a few miles in their shoes.

We are blessed to have a small circle of good friends. My wife is a social butterfly and has a network of good friends that is large. I tend to have a smaller group of people that I really count on, trust, and enjoy. We also have, fortunately for us, some good friends that we have made in our local community over the last few years. Interestingly many of ones friends made in adulthood come through their children. This makes sense, as we are all going through a common experience. In any case I have never felt a doubt about my illness, never felt anything but sincere caring and small questions about how I am feeling. Most of the men know that if I am out, meaning able to get out that day, that I do not want to talk about my health, I just want to talk about what we are doing, the game we are at. The women, more nurturing I suppose, ask, and if I am not at an event always ask after me. We men are different. I accept and am thankful for all of them.

Still I know that there are those that see me at events, dropping the kids off, who wonder what the deal is. After all except for the cane I use nothing on first glance looks that wrong with me. I do not have a missing arm or a third eye. I speak clearly. What is wrong with that guy? Now I have a good friend who told me you cannot worry about what the unknown person thinks and of course he is right.

The lesson I think is that we all need to give more people the benefit of the doubt. Those who know me, know my ethics, know my feelings on personal responsibility know that being sick is a blow to the ego and sense of self worth that I will never be completely over. They would never doubt me and the reality of my situation. However these people who have faith in me might have doubts about the next person they see that is " disabled."

I will admit surely that I have had the same thoughts about others long before I got sick. I think that there is something in our human nature to doubt others. I also think however that it might be more prevalent in our society than it is in others, even other Western cultures.

Certainly I am not smart enough to know why but my question is does it have to do with the extreme capitalism we practice in this country. After all in Europe, with their social safety net, their family leave benefits, their extended yearly vacations, and of course their higher taxes, it seems likely that there would be generated a more " we are all in this together" feeling and thus perhaps less time would be spent making judgements on the authenticity of other people. Or that theory could be all liberal hocus pocus.

I play fantasy baseball in a couple of leagues. Sometimes I have a hard time with my hands and my daughter might have to help me make entries. I got an application for my phone that is much easier to use and that has helped. Being a big baseball fan is who I am. A couple of weeks ago a competitor, a person I do not know as this is a public league accused me of cheating. He saw the success I was having in this league and the other and said no first year player could be that successful. I have to tell you I was angry to have someone even think that. This person did not know me, he did not know that I had watched and worshiped baseball for forty years, he did not know that I had played with friends in other leagues for a decade. Simply put he did not know anything about me. Should I care what he thought Of course not. But I did. Nobody wants anybody to think bad of them. I think the greatest anger or sense of powerlessness we can feel is when someone thinks that is wrong about us. Worse yet is if that opinion is not based on fact. If someone thinks something based on hearsay, or assumption then you cannot correct it with fact.

Someone who sees me limping along cashing my disability check even when confronted with the facts of my genetic condition would have some flip answer that would make clear that they still think it's not something that is truly disabling. The person who accused me of cheating at fantasy baseball of all things can be told of my experience and expertise but they still will think I am cheating.

The woman who is buying a birthday cake at the Shop and Save for a small child's birthday with food stamps might not have an oven that works. She might not have the skill set to make a pretty cake. There might be a design that her daughter saw one day in the bakery that she really wanted. Still if we see that we will go home and sputter about it, we will tell our friends about " welfare abuse" , we will update our Facebook status about that awkward moment when a welfare recipient is eating better than you a hard working citizen does. And yet when our child was young we would pay our light bill two weeks late perhaps to have money to buy our children something they wanted for Christmas. We do not know this woman at the store. We do not know why she is on food stamps. We do not know anything about her situation.

My Bible is pretty clear. What you do the least of us you do to me said Jesus. This is a pretty clear parable. It is hard to miss the point. Love your neighbor. Judge not. Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.

We all know these rules. Still we do not know this woman in the supermarket, people who doubt me are not at my home when I cannot lift my head, or wash my hair because I cannot lift my arms. They are not at our home when I have a dropsy attack and need to be helped to a chair or couch to sleep in a matter or seconds. They are not with me when I take a combination of Riboflavin, pain pills and Imodium to allow me to go to one of my children's events without any significant problems.

And I would never cheat at fantasy baseball.

Judge not lest you be judged

SNL defends Romney

It is true that good, bad, or indifferent, how a candidate is portrayed on late night television can, in time, have a strong influence on the public perception of his actual character. It has been said that in the age of the twenty four hour news cycle that no former Vice President will become President again. When one looks at the caricatures that have been made of Dan Quayle, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, and in this administration Joe Biden one can see that this might well be true. There are many reasons for this which perhaps I will go into in a future column but what this means is that broadcasts such as SNL can have a disproportionate amount of influence.

This is why what happened Saturday night is fairly significant. On the traditional Weekend Update segment " Ann Romney" appeared. The real Ann Romney had some trouble last week when she beseeches Republicans criticizing her husband and the race he is running to be nicer and to understand that this ( running for President) " is hard."

The actress playing Romney portrayed her as most do as a former beauty who is a bit vacant and one hundred percent dedicated to her husband. What was interesting in the skit was that fake Ann said what perhaps, in retrospect, real Ann should have or wished she had been allowed to say. That is, to all those on the right saying that this race was a chip shot and that Obama should have been easy to defeat, that one might wonder if the race was so easily winnable why the big names such as Jeb Bush and Chris Christie did not enter the race.

This was a true statement. One would hope that it might make some Republicans feel ashamed of their criticisms. What is truth is that for many on the right, a Romney win would increase their time frames for running for President for four years. It is, for these people, a delicate act proclaiming that Romney should win, wishing him not to, and then being ready to position themselves for the next race.

Perhaps, just once, Mitt should understand what Obama does. Obama consistently aggravates the left of his party knowing that they have no place else to go in terms of voting. If Romney would have the fabled Sister Soulja moment on his own party, on those in the extreme right, he would find independents flocking to him and again, after all, where would the right go. They hate Obama, they have always planned to hold their nose and vote for Romney, nothing that he could say would make that better or worse.

This is why SNL's segment was important in a way beyond ht norm. Inadvertently they showed Romney the only way he can perhaps win, that is to rebuke his own party for their extremeity. The question is can Mitt at this point go off script.

Mitt Didn't Wear Hispanic Face Did He?

Have you seen the pictures of Mitt at the Univision speech last week. Some are speculating on the level of brown his skin tone showed.

Personally I think it is foolish. I simply do not believe that Romney or his handlers would have allowed or thought that extra makeup would help him with Latino voters.

It is just an example of the silliness of this campaign. Foolish me, about four months ago I said to myself and anyone who would listen that this would be a very good campaign. Two candidates with totally differing viewpoints on almost every issue would allow the American electorate to make a decision about the direction of the country going forward.

This has not and apparently will not happen. There are a multitude of reasons of course, but anyone spending news coverage on the browner than normal skin of Mitt Romney should look in the mirror themselves.

Governor Romney Does It Again

The Republican Party is aflame today with many of the leading Conservatives attacking both Romney and the campaign he is running.

Between the debacle over his ill timed and inaccurate response to the Libyan and Egyptian embassy attacks last week to this hidden videotape where he used words such as entitled to disdain what they typical Obama voter Mitt is struggling.

Noonan, Scarborough, Kristol, and The Wall Street Journal all have heavily criticized the campaign and Romney himself.

No election is over until it is over and with three debates scheduled there is opportunity for a change in the electorate but signals out of the Romney campaign show that the campaign is soon approaching a point of no return. The public poll numbers are bad, the internal polling numbers of the campaigns are even worse for Romney. We hear rumors that were it not for the devastating effect it would have on the overall perception of the campaign that the Romney forces would pull out of Ohio. Most will tell you that without Ohio Republicans cannot win.

Something else we heard today is this. Last night was the first time since last Friday that Mitt Romney appeared in front of, in the same building with, actual voters. For all the discussion that Obama does not love the art of politics, of campaigning, where has Romney been.

Since the terrible videotape has emerged Monday there has been a general consensus that Romney must now release his tax returns. He must, the thinking goes, show that he is not part of the forty seven percent of people that pay no income taxes. I think it is likely that Romney paid taxes each year, but at this point with everything going against him if he truly wants to win this race he has to come clean.

I have a different take on this. I think, that everything we are seeing in this race in the last couple of weeks shows a candidate that regrets where he is. I think Mitt Romney will under no circumstances release his tax returns. I believe that he has come to the conclusion that he is not going to win. He might justify that in many ways to himself but I think it is a huge hurdle for him to jump that he might well not be willing to pursue. No, I think that he will not release his tax returns and until and unless he does, it is a reflection of the fact that Mitt Romney's skin in the game is minimal.

And lets remember this. If you thought the internal strife on the right was extreme after McCain/Palin you have not seen anything yet. Romney and his terrible campaign might well signal the end of the Republican party as we know it.

The Concern Over Egypt

This morning more protesters are gathering around the American embassy in Cairo. This two days after our embassy was breached and a terrorist flag placed on the flagpole.

As we express concern and watch Mitt Romney get himself in trouble with intemperate statements we should remember one thing very clearly.

While four Americans died in Libya, it must be remembered that many Libyan troops died defending our embassy and that the Libyan President has apologized for the incident and expressed remorse for the lives lost. In Egypt however there has been no, not any, response from the government, not the President nor the military.

Comparing the importance of Egypt and Libya to the world stage is like comparing the Russia and Turkmenistan. There is no comparison. If this thing in Egypt gets out of control the danger to the peace of the Middle East, the peace of the world is great.

It could be that Obama's cool, somewhat unemotional approach is the correct one for times like these. Certainly no one can think that making statements such as Romney has made is Presidential.

Criticism from Republican stalwarts such as Jon Huntsman, Peggy Noonan, former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, and John Sununu have all expressed great concern with the statements made by Governor Romney in the last couple of days.

We need to concern ourselves with the Middle East and yes, politics, should stop at our borders.

Israel's Netanyahu is Out of Control

It is amazing to me that the Israel's leader Netanyahu is interfering in our foreign policy and election to an extent that is more brazen than we have ever seen. Trying to push the United States into bombing Iran and their nuclear facilities. Of course in Israel this is a debate as well.

Israel has problems, demographic problems which in the years to come will spell their end as they exist now. It is interesting to me that somehow over the last thirty years the right wing of the United States has embraced the right wing of Israel in a way that in some cases, is almost treasonous. Not treasonous in a way that is like you think of Benedict Arnold, but certainly treasonous in the way of acting for a faction in another country in a way that is detrimental to your own country.

Mitt Romney has become nothing but a mouthpiece for Netanyahu. Keep in mind that I do not say a mouthpiece for Israel. This is because the generals in Israel and the Mossad is not in favor of an overt attack against Israel. The geopolitical firestorm this would unhinge would be catastrophic. It would unite the Iranian people behind their leaders in a way that nothing else could, it would send rockets into Israel in a way that could only exacerbate the whole Middle East crisis. Hamas and Hezbollah would see their activities given a cloud of legitimacy they currently do not have. And from a purely parochial small scale viewpoint a recession worldwide would be caused and we would be paying five, six, seven dollars a gallon for gas in the United States.

Often folks complain that Obama was not prepared to be President but his foreign policy has for the most part been quite strong and more nuanced than the blunderbuss approach from Bush the second.

In the Middle East right now we have Egypt in a situation that is a powder keg. We have the Muslim Brotherhood in control in Egypt balanced by the military. We have Syria in Civil War. And in the middle of this somebody really suggests creating an Israeli/Iranian firestorm.

There is one way to allow the extremists in these countries that took part in the Arab spring to usurp power in these countries, that for the most part have not been anti West in their new leadership. That is to enter into a military action against Muslims on the side of the Israelis.

Israel is our great ally. And they should be. But they have some hard difficulties to accept. Birthrates mean that soon they will become more and more, in their own country, a minority. The apartheid policies they enforce in Gaza and the West Bank will have to be used in more places just to keep order. They need to find a way to a two state solution or over our children's lifetime they will be in an untenable situation.

A last thing to point out is that of all the countries in the Middle East Iran is the country whose people, whose population, is the most receptive to the West. This is not a country of people living in tents. If one looks at Tehran this is a teeming, literate, western embracing culture. They are run by a mad man but the only way that extremism will win in the long run in this country will be if we give them a reason to pull together.

Put another way, if someone attacked the United States, and we have experienced that, did the battles between Republicans and Democrats become less important. Of course they did. Correctly so. Why would we expect other people in other countries to act differently.

One more reason not to vote for Romney. He is so beholden to Netanyahu and the far right in this country, like Sheldon Adelson, that he cannot be trusted to run foreign policy. He just cannot.

This could blow up at any minute. The end point is, however, that what Bibi is doing is unprecedented in his attempted interference in American politics.

And Now It Is Fall

While the weather this week is predicted to be warm by the feel of the evenings it is clear that fall is fast approaching. Fall is often our most enjoyable season. High blue skies, warm days, crisp nights, and of course for those of us with schoolage children we are back into our routines.

This past summer might well have been the most amazing weather wise I can remember. While the heat was overpowering across much of the country I do not think that it was the hottest summer on record here, it might not have been the driest, but what I do think is that without doubt it was the sunniest. A few clouds here and there but last week when we had a rainy day or two I could not recall the last time we had a full rainy day. In short for sun lovers a perfect summer.

As we approach fall my kids are all in school. My oldest is a Senior and trying to figure out what he wants to do next year. He wants to go to college, he thinks he wants to go out of state, but complicated things like majors, where, and cost are things he would like to worry about....tomorrow.

My middle son is in tenth grade, finishing drivers ed, in fact he should have his permit in literally three hours. I await this joyous event with lukewarm excitement. I never look forward to my boys driving, and I have more fear for this one than his older brother as I think there is at least a chance he might be more inclined to make mistakes of a showoffy nature. My older son, God Bless him, is too ornery to try to impress anybody. In the world of driving that might be one of the few places where that attribute is an asset.


My youngest daughter continues in her artistic way. She is a homebody, she loves her family and while she has some great friends the adjustments that happen in Junior High have made her somewhat ambivalent. She enjoys doing things with her friends and is a typical teenage girl when she does, but she also can be easily self contained. Much like I was when I was a kid actually.

Football starts today and while I will watch enough to keep up with the teams enough to help my sister in her football pool football holds no great excitement for me. I will care in December, and then only somewhat.

As I get older my sports interest becomes more and more one dimensional and the offseason in baseball becomes my offseason as well and sports surely take a strong backseat to what is going on in my life at that time. I have less and less interest in the other sports which used to provide at least a distraction during the offseason.

The fall also brings the " New television season " which, unfortunately is another event that has reduced excitement from years ago. Now with the advent of cable and the dominance, for example in the Emmy's, of Cable Tv, there is more reason to get excited over the return of The Walking Dead or Boardwalk Empire than anything the networks might be bringing back or debuting.

Still I think getting older is an exercise in modification. The highs and excitements of life are a little less so, the lows are also not as low and we settle into a period of contentment that is deeper. If one wanted to we could describe our younger years as bit more bi-polar than what we find later in life.


Of course that in itself can take one away from success as all these motivational folks will tell you that you should always keep striving. For me the sign of maturity is when, perhaps, you find a place of happiness and contentment and most of your striving and effort is then to help your children on the same path. Biologically we have little use to the world once we have procreated.

Take me for example, my disability is not fun. Most days moving is difficult and somedays worse than that. Still I am warm, have enough to eat, have many interests I can still pursue, and have a great family. Imagine if I had been a cross country runner or some kind of outdoor enthusiast. I enjoy sports, and miss basketball and baseball especially, but love of books has probably saved my sanity.


The last thing fall brings is, this year, the Presidential election. Everyone knows where I come down on the vote, I just hope that the campaigns can be run in such a way so as to not the whole process seem dirty and make us in this country feel bad about the process. We have to feel pride in the process, if we can do that, then the results of the election will be less isolating and more accepted.

We all know what comes after fall, let us enjoy these next couple of months.

Breaking Down the Conventions

As we move past Labor Day we are now officially in the homestretch of the Presidential Election. I am in no way an undecided voter. My leanings are well known.

Now that said I am not an unabashed Obama supporter. I think that the President's biggest weakness has been his inability to see that his efforts at compromise with the Republicans will offer no fruit. He should have changed his tactics as soon as this was identifiable.

I do not think there is anyone more insightful in the political world than Joe Scarborough and this morning his bemused observation that, at least in terms of pageantry, optimism, and excitement, the Democratic convention in one day has already surpassed the Republican convention from last week in total. Rich Lowry, one of the brightest political minds on the right, tweeted last night that, at the Republican convention, there were no displays of emotion from the crowd, no connection, such as was seen in Charlotte.

With that in mind the Dems have President Clinton tonight, as well as President Obama tomorrow night and thus, if there is any bump, it should go for the Dems.

A sharp contrast between right and left is that the right does not embrace their past leaders. Bush and Cheney are no where to be seen while tonight at 10:30 Bill Clinton, twelve years removed from office, will be smiling at the American people and talking about his friend Barack.

This election might well mirror 2000 in that there is no surety that the popular vote and the electoral college will line up. Most observers, however, think that in this election Governor Romney has a better chance of winning the popular vote but losing the electoral. Certainly there will be some satisfaction in this result from the left that remembers 2000. What I hope does not happen is a groundswell to remove the electoral college. I am a firm believer in the Electoral College.

Lastly no matter who wins one must hope that we all step back from the brink of the divide that separates us. Hearing talk from Chuck Norris that a reelection of the President will lead to" one thousand years of darkness" and a sitting Texas judge stating that if the ballot box does not work then armed insurrection might be necessary. The fact that these comments are being made and that the right is not rebuking Chuck Norris bodes ill for our healing our divisions post election.

Comments such as these lend an air of illegitimacy to any candidate that you do not support that might win. It is hard to govern when it is not a question of ideas but a question of legitimacy.

These next two months should be interesting.